MLB rumors: Reports on trades, free agency deals, and contract extensions

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are both young, unique superstars who are currently free agents, but they remain unsigned. Perhaps you’ve heard about this. Perhaps you’re just overwhelmed with all of the other baseball news, like the Cubs hiring Craig Breslow in a front office position, or the Blake Parker deal becoming official, but it’s true. Harper and Machado are still out there, waiting for a team to give them millions.

The question, then, is should a team give them those millions. Specifically, scores of millions over a 10-year stretch. To do this, we’ll have to figure out just how good Harper and Machado have been through the age of 25, and then we’ll look for the players who were just as good or better.

POINT: Yasmani Grandal is a freak, an absolute anomaly. Catchers aren’t supposed to hit. Switch-hitting catchers definitely aren’t supposed to hit. There aren’t enough switch-hitting catchers who don’t hit, really, so to find someone who can swing the stick from both sides of the plate, well, that’s just special.

Every contending team without a plus hitter behind the plate — maybe even every contending team, period — should want Grandal on their team. He makes baseball teams better.

Jed Lowrie has been worth four or five wins over each of the last two seasons. It’s hard to put WAR into context sometimes, so maybe this will help: Only 28 players in baseball accomplished this feat, and you’ve heard of most of them. They’re perennial All-Stars like Christian Yelich, Mike Trout, Jose Ramirez, and they’re also lesser-known contributors like Whit Merrifield, Aaron Hicks, and Lowrie, but they’re all in a small club of players who were extremely valuable to their teams in both 2017 and 2018.

Just about every team in baseball is unwilling to spend money so that they can start Jed Lowrie at second base.

The offseason is boring again. It’s more exciting than the strike or lockout will be, but it’s still boring. Bryce Harper and Manny Machado are out there — literally Bryce Harper and Manny Machado! Available to anyone who wants to pay them! — but there aren’t even any half-juicy rumors. This is how the offseason will be every year, apparently. At least we aren’t surprised this time.

This all means that it’s time for an annual tradition around these parts: We need to assign the remaining free agents to new teams. Please note, as always, that these assignments are legally binding.

The Minnesota Twins signed Nelson Cruz to a one-year contract with an option, and they’re trying to win more baseball games than they lose, just like they should be. At the risk of becoming repetitive, I’m suddenly proud of any baseball team that tries to do this after an under-.500 season. I shouldn’t be, and when the strike comes, the first words rattling around in your brain should be something like, “It got to the point where we were surprised that bad teams were trying to get better.” Until then, let’s praise the Twins for trying.

Like the Mets and Reds, the Twins are looking to improve on a disappointing season rather than commit to a never-ending rebuild. Unlike the go-for-it strategies for the Mets and Reds, however, the timing as it relates to their division is almost perfect. The Indians aren’t interested in getting better, and the latest rumors have them actively getting worse. Now is the time for an upstart team looking to punish them for their arrogance. Even if we all know the Indians are probably going to win the division by more than 10 games again.

The Dodgers traded Yasiel Puig, Alex Wood, Matt Kemp, Kyle Farmer, and $7 million to the Reds for Homer Bailey, Josiah Gray, and Jeter Downs. Here are 11 thoughts about the deal:

1. Yasiel Puig turned 28 just two weeks ago. There is so much to digest with the whole Puig experience — the tools, the quirks, the bees in his pants — that it’s easy to forget that he’s still baseball-young. His career numbers don’t look that scintillating until you adjust for Dodger Stadium, and then they’re pretty sweet indeed. A career 127 OPS+ would be good for someone with Matt Adams’ tools, but then you can remember that Puig can run, throw, and catch, too.

If you want to get technical about it, Manny Machado is probably a better free agent than Bryce Harper. The former plays a key infield position; the latter struggled as an outfielder this year. They’re both the same age, but Machado has actually been worth more WAR over his career. Harper is likelier to run through a wall, Natural-style, while Machado loves to treat each of his hamstrings like a precious Stradivarius. And, perhaps most importantly, while both will make your dad angry, Machado will make him angrier. Just look at those neck veins go!

And yet I’m not as interested about where Machado will go. This almost certainly has to do with the hype residue that Harper is still dusted with — when a kid makes the cover of Sports Illustrated before he gets his driver’s license, he develops something of a must-see reputation, and I’m an easy mark. I wrote hundreds of words about his major-league debut, and I’m not sure if I’ve done that for a rookie since. He was so special, so unique!

The Houston Astros agreed to sign outfielder Michael Brantley to a two-year, $32 million contract on Monday, giving them yet another potent bat in an already stacked lineup. Brantley hits for average, runs well, controls the strike zone, and can be an absolute doubles machine. He unquestionably makes his new team better, which is why he’ll be making $16 million a year, a salary that seems like an old-market wage. This is what the talented veterans used to get, by gum. Maybe there won’t be a strike after all.

It shouldn’t be surprising that it’s the Astros handing out a spendy win-now contract like this. They shouldn’t be worried about their window closing just yet, but every team that’s good now should definitely have some urgency. The future of baseball is pain. It’s always pain. Winning now is always a great idea, because you never know when you’ll be unable to win later. This is why everyone hates the Yankees so much; they don’t follow the rules.

The Winter Meetings have come and gone, and everyone can agree that they were a little dull. Look at what the Winter Meetings used to be, a maelstrom of transactions, each one nuttier than the last. Also, if you click that link, you are legally prohibited from roasting me for giving the Reds a B- for trading Alfredo Simon for Eugenio Suarez. But the point is that the Winter Meetings used to mean something, man. They used to mean something!

There were still moves, of course, and we need to evaluate them. This year I’m going to try something different, though, staying away from grades or winners/losers. This is because that’s the kind of format that makes me look like an idiot when I do something like give the Reds a B- for trading Alfredo Simon for Eugenio Suarez. Instead we’re going to go with some simple yearbook superlatives, starting with the most obvious ...

The New York Mets are going for it. It seems weird to give a team a biscuit for trying, but in 2018, it’s something to applaud, especially when it’s a team that didn’t contend the previous season. The Mets have already traded for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, and they’re in just about every single rumor that involves a catcher. Considering the talent they still have on hand, even after a 77-85 season, this all makes sense. Have a biscuit.

Writers are also spamming the meetings with Noah Syndergaard rumors, as if there were a way for a team to trade its second-best pitcher — someone who would be the best pitcher on about half the teams in the league — and somehow come out a better team on the other side. This does not make sense. Gimme that biscuit back, and feel the wrath of this rolled up newspaper. Bad team. Bad team!

Do you like waiver claims? Then, boy, would you have liked the first day of the 2018 MLB Winter Meetings. Carlos Asuaje was claimed! Mike Gerber was claimed! Just a bunch of GMs hanging around Vegas, claiming each other’s stuff when they aren’t looking.

But there are still rumors floating around. Actual rumors. Our job today is to look at these rumors and grade them. More specifically, we need to find the best rumor for each team and grade it.

Paul Goldschmidt, baseball’s most underrated superstar, is going to the St. Louis Cardinals. Their fans will love him and adore him, and there will be bobbleheads and incredibly earnest signs on poster board around the ballpark and standing ovations, and it’s all going to convince him to sign a six-year extension before the end of the season, and he’s going to hit 200 home runs in those six years. It’s going to make you sick, unless you’re a Cardinals fan, which means you won’t understand why the rest of us are rolling our eyes and making gagging sounds.

This is how it is going to be. And I know that you know this, too. Talking about it helps us all.

The Washington Nationals signed Patrick Corbin for six years, $140 million. It’s a bold move. It’s an extravagant move. We have to figure out if it’s a good move, though, both on the diamond and with respect to future payrolls. Hint: Yes, it’s a good move. Probably.

It’ll probably help the Nationals win in 2019. They’ll have Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Corbin at the front of the rotation, which means that about two out of every 1,000 balls will be put in play. The Nationals saw the Braves’ move for Josh Donaldson and raised, then saw the Mets’ move for Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano and re-raised.

The Seattle Mariners won 89 games last year, but that wasn’t enough to break the worst postseason drought in North American sports. If you consider the first clause of that sentence with the second clause — how sentences work, usually — you might be surprised that the Mariners are undergoing a dramatic teardown and rebuilding process. The team was close to the postseason last year; every rookie who hit a home run the last time the Mariners made the postseason has already retired. You would think there would be some urgency.

There’s that pesky context to consider, though. While the Mariners were 89-73, their Pythagorean record was 77-85, which suggests something wrong under the hood. One of the team’s brightest offensive lights is a free agent, and he was going to be 38 anyway. Of the players who could hit, just two of them were under 30. They had some money to spend if they wanted to address their major concerns, but not a lot. And, above all, they would be chasing the Astros, an excellent, fire-forged team from the depths of their nightmares.

To appreciate fully just how brilliant Paul Goldschmidt’s 2018 season was, you first have to appreciate just how poorly it began. After a slow first week, Goldschmidt looked like the slugger of yore, but in the month of May, he hit .144/.252/.278 with 35 strikeouts in 111 plate appearances. He was Jeff Mathis in a down season. He was over 30 and broken.

The report of his career’s death was an exaggeration. Goldschmidt dominated for the rest of the season, hitting .330/.420/.602, with 26 home runs. He finished sixth in the National League MVP voting, which seems impressive until you remember that he’s had three different top-three finishes.

The Seattle Mariners traded James Paxton to the New York Yankees for pitchers Justus Sheffield and Erik Swanson, and outfielder Dom Thompson-Williams. This is a big trade, and we need to dig into it. Paxton was one of the most coveted players available in trade this offseason. Sheffield was one of the best prospects likely to be traded this offseason. It’s a fascinating trade, so let’s get into it.

We’ll sum this swap up with some important dos and don’ts for both teams.

The last sentence of Baseball America’s scouting report of Patrick Corbin after the 2011 season was “He projects as a No. 4 starter.” This isn’t to rag on Baseball America for underselling Corbin’s chances and repeating what most evaluators thought at the time, but rather to point out that he was never a can’t-miss top prospect. He was a No. 12 prospect for the Angels before he was a No. 9 prospect for the Diamondbacks, and he occasionally showed up on the fringes of a league’s top-10 list. He was a lefty who threw in the low 90s with solid-not-stunning breaking balls and command, which is a description that fits about five to 10 players in every system, even the bad systems.

Corbin had to prove himself.

The Astros are one of the top teams that could change the most in free agency this offseason. With mainstays like Charlie Morton, Dallas Keuchel, Marwin Gonzalez, Brian McCann, and Evan Gattis all potentially leaving in free agency this winter, there are a lot of decisions to make in Houston. Some offers will be made to try and retain one or more of these players, but it’s looking like most will no longer be in an Astros uniform next year.

With catchers Martin Maldonado, McCann and Gattis (who, granted, only spent a pair of games behind the plate this season) all probably departing, catching is one of Houston’s biggest needs over the next few months. Right now they’re left with Max Stassi, who played 82 games at catcher in 2018 and is under team control through 2022. He hit just .226/.316/.394 with 8 home runs though, so the team would be smart to go for a top catching option in the short term and keep Stassi as a reliable backup if possible (he posted a 26% caught stealing rate this year).

Things are starting to come into focus this offseason as far as who is buying, who is selling, and who is doing a little bit of both to fill the holes on their roster. Today, we got a nice little rumor about the Padres going after Noah Syndergaard. Don’t laugh. San Diego is trying! Might as well shoot for the stars while you have the prospects to do it.

The rumor

Manny Machado hasn’t had the same amounts of ink spilled on his free agency as Bryce Harper ... yet. Right now the environment seems to be that Harper’s decision will get all the attention first (since more teams also appear to be in on him) and the Machado decision will fall into place after that with all the rumors that go with it.

But we’ve still got some rumors to look at! The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, citing his colleague Jayson Stark, says teams like the Yankees are taking an extra hard look at Machado after his postseason antics made headlines. This includes asking about his personality and taking some extra time before committing to him as an option. Which other teams might be doing the same thing, and which of them are making the decision to move forward?

The Mariners have decided that this is another rebuilding year for them after finishing third in the AL West last season behind the Astros and A’s. That doesn’t make complete sense, seeing as the A’s needed a stunning turnaround to get a Wild Card spot and the Mariners could have spent a little money and gotten right back into contending position if they so chose.

I’m not here to tell Seattle’s front office what to do, especially since they’ve already begun the process of flipping assets with the Mike Zunino/Guillermo Heredia for Mallex Smith trade (but seriously Mariners if you’re reading this you don’t have to tear it down this year). What we can do, since this is their chosen path, is take a look at the options they have for starter James Paxton.

As free agency gets going, players will be added to the pool of available free agents depending on whether their options are picked up or declined or whether they accept qualifying offers or not. While there are lots of team or player options out there to be decided on, most of them are probably going to be declined. The qualifying offer amount this year is $17.9 million.

This is a list of all the options (whether player, team, or mutual) that have been decided on thus far, and what their salary for next season is or would have been depending on the outcome. This includes buyout amounts as well, if applicable. The qualifying offers are listed as accepted or declined.

On Friday, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported the Cubs are open to trading star third baseman Kris Bryant as part of cost-control measures this offseason, so naturally people went into a frenzy dismissing the rumor or figuring out ways it could actually happen. When your nickname is “Sparkle Jesus”, beloved by fans, there’s going to be some attention paid to a rumor of this magnitude.

While a Bryant trade remains unlikely, it is an interesting case study for the state of the Cubs right now and why it’s believable at all. Bryant won’t be a free agent until 2021 and was a big part of their 2016 World Series, winning the NL MVP that year as well, so why are they (allegedly) quick to gauge interest in swapping him for cheaper parts? Let’s see what makes sense and what’s heavy speculation.